


Free Program

by bunnyfication



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Skating, Ice Skating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnyfication/pseuds/bunnyfication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ice skating AU in which Finland and Sweden skate as a pair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Program

**Author's Note:**

> **From:** [](http://stalkerbunny.livejournal.com/profile)[**stalkerbunny**](http://stalkerbunny.livejournal.com/)  
>  **To:** [](http://shake-it-buddy.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://shake-it-buddy.livejournal.com/)**shake_it_buddy**  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** AU, descriptive figure skating and...a kiss? Shocking, I know. o3o  
>  **Prompt:** Ice skating contest, Sweden and Finland skate as a pair. ** <\- Summary **
> 
> **A.N.:** So, I kinda like ~~perving over~~ watching figure skating, so in that sense writing this was a lot of fun. On the other hand, my grasp of the technical details was and still is (despite some frantic Wikipedia + YouTube research) rather sketchy, so I apologise for any visible mistakes. Now, it seems ISU (International Skating Union) regulations are all “nyuuu teams must consist of one man and a _lady_...and men have to wear ~~the~~ pants too!” + all those rules about country representation…  
>  So that’s why this fic is set in some day far far away in the future, when such rules have been dispensed with.  >3>~  
> I wonder how obvious my ~*sneak*~ cameos here are...and one is not like ~~usual~~ the others, see if you can spot her. ;)
> 
> (written in 2010)

Tino Väinämöinen was eight years old, at gym class, and hated his life. When he'd first heard the class was going skating, he'd been pretty happy. After all, playing hockey was fun, and Tino hadn't had a chance to do it in a while. Such a long while, in fact, that when he tried his skates on that morning they didn't fit him. Not even close.

That started a line of unhappy coincidences, that ended up with Tino wearing a pair of borrowed _girl's skates_. Well, their teacher had told him they were figure skating skates and being a boy or a girl didn't matter but...who was she trying to fool? They were _white_ , and had the text "princess" in gold letters on them (hidden by Tino's trouser leg, but he knew it was there, _everyone_ knew it was there).

He was leaning on the wall of the building where they'd changed into the skates, arms crossed, face red with embarrassment and set in a stubborn scowl. He would _not_ skate on girl skates, no matter what their teacher said. He’d just come to this school, and people already kept saying his Swedish was weird even though his dad spoke it exactly the same (some of the other kids even said Tino spoke like a Moomin, which…didn’t sound too bad actually...), and now he’d be forever known as the boy with weird skates. Why did his parents even have to move here!

Tino suddenly got the feeling someone was watching him, and looking up, saw Berwald staring at him. Tino stared back, wondering if the scary looking boy was going to laugh at him, but he just kept staring at Tino in his usual blank way. It was kinda creepy…but then Tino’s stubbornness raised its head again, rousing his courage.

“What are you staring at!” Tino snapped, his chin jutting up challengingly.

“N’thing,” was the placid reply. “Ya ok?” he glanced downwards and then started to walk towards a very startled Tino through the light snow covering the edge of the rink. Tino plastered himself against the wall, suddenly terrified for his life again. He raised his fists and closed his eyes (admittedly not the best defend plan)…and opened them quickly again when something tugged at his ankle instead.

He found Berwald grouched on the ground, tightening the laces of his skates.

“What’re you…hey, ow, that’s too much!”

Berwald didn’t look up, his gaze focused on the laces as if he was doing something very important.

“Need t’ b’ tight or ya fall,” he said, and continued tightening.

“I can tie my laces myself…” Tino mumbled, but not very loudly. At least Berwald hadn’t mocked his…

“Hey! Berwald, come skate with me?” A bright girl’s voice interrupted them, and Tino saw that she was standing on the ice next to them, an eager look on her face.

“Can you show that spin again, I want to learn it too!” she enthused.

“Um…’m…promised t’ skate with Tino,” Berwald mumbled.

Tino was about to protest this, before he realized that Berwald was glancing from the girl to him, a desperate, cornered look on his face. Oh, he must not want to skate with the girl…Tino could understand that, not that he didn’t get along with girls but they could get tiresome.

“Yeah, sorry!” he told her brightly, and she left, disappointed.

By that time Berwald was done with Tino’s laces too, and got up to dust snow off his knees.

“Thanks,” he said, very quietly.

“No problem,” Tino replied cheerfully.

Berwald gave him another frank, challenging stare. Or, Tino was starting to think, maybe his face just naturally looked like that? Then he looked to the ground, and mumbled something.

“What?” Tino asked.

“J’st…want t’ skate with me?”

Tino hesitated a moment, and then shrugged. Why not? He’d almost forgotten about his embarrassing skates, but as he got to the ice he almost immediately stumbled on the little spikes the figure skate blade had on the front of it. Stupid! Why couldn’t they even have proper blades like hockey skates.

Berwald had turned to look at him.

“Need help?” he asked, frowning.

“No!” Tino snapped, embarrassed again. “These stupid girl skates just…”

His brain chose that moment to notify him of the small, and almost but not quite insignificant detail that Berwald was wearing figure skates. In black, but they were still clearly recognizable. His anger deflated into a different sort of embarrassment suddenly.

“Um, I mean, I’m just not used to them yet and…um.”

Berwald gave him a dubious (or so Tino thought at the time) look, but nodded.

“Want me t’ teach ya?” he asked instead, and what could Tino say to that, really?

“Uh, k’…I guess…”

*

~ _Thirteen years later_ ~

Tino was leaning on the railing, following the performance of Wang Yao and Ivan Braginski. Two world famous figure skaters, who hadn’t been seen together on the ice for a while.

As the audience watched in rapt fascination, they glided over the ice as if it were air and the two could fly. Yao in red, a garment that flickered after his shoulders like wings of flame, his moves as perfect as they’d ever been. Like clockwork, an announcer had once said of him years ago, and Yao had only polished his skills since.

And then there was his partner, Ivan Braginski, clad in white that glittered faintly like snow. He was smiling faintly, an expression that seldom wavered while he was on the ice. Ivan Braginski could be a cold, ruthless man, but when he turned on his charm, the audience didn’t have a chance but to be pulled in by the magic.

He hadn’t been seen in a competition for several years though, not since…since an experience so humiliating even Berwald cringed to remember it. And he had some very real reasons to dislike Braginski. Such as “coaching” Tino in a way that drew him to practice on an injured leg, almost causing a permanent injury. Berwald had never quite forgiven that, even if he kept quiet about it because Tino himself seemed on well enough terms with his ex-coach these days.

Of course, Berwald considered as he glanced at Tino, who was still watching their competitors performing, eyes bright and eager, his partner wasn’t entirely blameless in the matter. Still, there had certainly been no need for Braginski to _encourage_ his reckless behaviour.

He shook his head in an attempt to bring his thoughts back to the present. Had to concentrate if they wanted to have any hope of beating the elder stars on ice now. Or any of the others, for that matter.

He stepped up to join Tino next to the railing. Their coach was also there, the diminutive French woman almost having to stand on tiptoe just to see over the railing, her head of tightly permed white hair almost shaking with excitement. She kept making quiet exclamations in her native tongue, as usual forgetting Tino didn’t speak a word of French and Berwald only understood a little.

“Damn they’re good,” Tino himself whispered, apparently sensing Berwald’s presence because his gaze was still glued onto the two performing. He looked admiring. “It’s good to see him at his best again, finally.” Tino added, and Berwald had no need to ask who he meant.

He too, despite everything, had to admire how Brakinski had shaped up to his old standards again. Alcoholism was a devil to beat, after all.

Berwald made a small noise of agreement, and Tino turned towards him, a grin flashing on his face, toothy and a bit feral.

“This way, we can finally really kick his ass.” Tino declared, his hand balling into a fist. He looked positively delighted over the matter, and Berwald sighed mentally. Oh well, Tino did always skate his best when he was all fired up like this…

“Tino! Ze language!” their coach exclaimed, slapping Tino half-heartedly on the shoulder.

“Aww Fleur, that wasn’t even a real curse,” Tino mumbled, earning a mild glare from the tiny woman.

“Now, you two start right next, concentrate.” Fleur Oeuf barked, slapping both their shoulders (or the nearest place she could reach, which on Berwald was about mid back).

Tino grinned up at Berwald, only a sliver of nervousness in his eyes.

Berwald wished he could be so optimistic, but he’d seen the previous performance, and frankly...they were almost on par in the short program points, nothing too impossible if the other pair’s performance hadn’t been perfect...unfortunately, it had been.

“Their technique’s better.” Berwald said flatly.

Tino’s eyes narrowed, making him remind Berwald of a general sensing a lack of moral in a soldier. Combined with his high-collared dark costume, the expression seemed somehow especially sharp.

“Berwald.”

“’es?”

“Look, they might have been the first similar pair who won a gold medal in the Olympics, and they might have more perfect technique than we do...but Berwald, _we can still beat them_. Know why? One, because we’re still pretty damn good, and two, because imperfection is _more interesting_.”

Berwald stared at the man beaming at him, grinning like they already had the gold in their hands. His partner was utterly crazy, he realized once again.

He bent to kiss him, but Tino was already heading out, having subtly snaked away as soon as he noticed Berwald’s intention, which was probably a bit before Berwald did. That was the downside of your partner being taught to move in tandem with you, Berwald supposed ruefully.

He didn’t much like being kissed in public, Berwald had simply forgotten it momentarily. As Tino had said once, he still _hated_ the stereotypes people heaped on him. He’d, after consideration, bear with enhancing said stereotypes, because sneaking around for the sake of idiots was cowardly. But he’d rather they didn’t make a spectacle about being together.

That wasn’t too much to ask, Berwald reminded himself, before he focused his thoughts on the performance they were about to do.

They glided out onto the ice together.

“Besides, Eduard’s going to be pissed if we don’t use that light show he made for the final performance, so we had better ace this,” Tino told him sotto voce.

*

_”Looks like we get a treat after a treat...Tino Väinämöinen and Berwald Oxenstierna...who are competing for Sweden this year. Those two compete for their respective home countries in turns, isn’t that just romantic, Roderich?”_

_“Not quite the word I’d use Elizaveta...the theme of their performance is also from Scandinavian mythology, the final battle between Thor and the World Serpent.“_

_“Oh! And such fabulous costume design too, that dress—“_

_“Tunic.”_

_“Tunic Oxenstierna has...and who’d have thought cute little Tino could look so much like a dragon. Why, this reminds me...”_

_“Ahem. The music is by the metal-folk trio Hólmganga, from their latest album Ragnarök...I must say the classical influences in this song are rather interesting, almost brings to mind Wagner’s...”_ ”

On the ice, Berwald stood still as a statue, his face lowered towards the ground. His simple tunic was dark red, the colour uneven as if it had been stained such. The only decorations were a chain around his waist, from which hung a stylised hammer, and a silver lightning bolt design branching out from the collar of the tunic. The bright lights from above glinted on the thin bolts among the dark fabric.

Tino was skating around him, rather like a snake swimming in circles. His movements were appropriately smooth and unhurried, but with a quiet menace in them. As he moved, light sparked over the iridescent fabric of his costume, turning it briefly from black to blue and green, like a magpie’s feather. His scaly costume had a set of transparent spiky fins, following the line of his back and growing smaller until they ended at his lower back. Some of his hair had been similarly spiked to follow the design.

The music followed the mood, the ominous wailing off a fiddle underscored by distant thunder.

Tino’s circling grew closer and closer, until he made just one more round, hand brushing along Berwald’s waist, and then turning away...except at the moment Tino touched him, Berwald seemed to snap to life, springing after his partner as the music exploded from the slow intro into a faster tempo and more instruments.

After that, they glided and spun in near perfect synchrony for a moment, the dance of near even rivals before a battle, each one with the other’s thoughts and movements. Tino was always just a step ahead, seemingly flirting with being caught, and Berwald never _quite_ able to catch him.

_”Oh, how lovely, I can just imagine how—“_

_“And that was a side by side triple cross foot spin, quite clean.”_

Eventually Berwald “caught” Tino, lifting him up into the air as if intending to throw him into the ice (several people in the audience found their breath caught, despite knowing that couldn’t be the case), but Tino seemed to hang on, twisting his body into a star like shape, before smoothly moving back onto the ice, and escaping from Berwald’s hold again for a moment.

But soon he was back in the air, swung up as if he didn’t weight more than a feather, spun around and barely set on the ground before Berwald _did_ throw him into the air, so fast the audience could follow the sequence. Tino spun, and landed precariously on the ice, his fingertips just barely touching it. As he raised his head, their gazes met and Tino winked at Berwald.

Just making things more exciting for the crowd, he seemed to say.

_”A triple axel throw! As if it was nothing...I said anyone would have a hard time beating Braginski and Yao but these two are giving it their all.”_

After that there was again a slower but by no means less intense part. The music _growled_ now, as Berwald and Tino stalked each other across the stage, gliding and spinning in unison. It still looked less like a dance and more like a fight, and they kept picking up the tempo slowly, so the audience never had a moment to take a deep breath before the next death defying move.

There was a whoosh of amazement when it was _Tino_ who picked Berwald up and threw him into a spin.

_”Oh...! I was **told** they’d do it but...damn!”_

_“ Elizaveta your language...Yes, that was a rather unorthodox move, as we could expect from these two.”_

The music rose into a crescendo, and Berwald threw Tino into one last spin—

_”Death spiral, appropriately enough.”_

Swinging him around almost horizontal to the ice, and then turning that movement into a lift and another spin in the air, before settling him back on the ice.

As Tino’s skates touched the ice, he slumped down on his knees and threw his arms up as the music drew into a last thunderous wail...and stopped. In the sudden silence, Tino slumped listlessly like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

As Berwald drew back, a drumbeat started, single echoing thumps like a haltering heartbeat, one, two, three...nine beats and nine shorts steps away, and then Berwald fell on his knees as well, and remained there, head hanging down as he’d started the performance.

After a short silence, the audience exploded into applause, and Tino sprung to his feet, skating those nine steps to give Berwald a hand up. Berwald blinked at the thunderous applause, as if wondering who it was for.

“Didn’t go too bad, huh?” he said.

Tino turned to him, blue eyes shining, and then wrenched his partner down into a passionate kiss, in front of an arena full of people and TV cameras broadcasting to around the world.

While a certain announcer feared his co-worker was having some sort of seizure ( _Oh Roderich, I think I can die happy now...!”_ ), Berwald pondered distractedly just how embarrassed Tino was going to be later, as this was hardly in the category of “not making a spectacle”.

But then he just decided to enjoy it while it lasted.

*

As it turned out, Tino was rather mortified...except then they _did_ win the gold, and he forgot all about it. Ivan Braginski got silver, as a surprise to no one, and congratulated them with a rather terrifying smile. Tino grinned back and promised him a rematch at the World Championship next month.

“And then, maybe we’ll see the Finnish flag at number one!”

“We’ll see indeed Mr. Väinämöinen...”

Berwald did wish Tino didn’t goad the other competitors, but it was probably too much to hope, especially when it was Ivan Braginski.

It was chance, really, that among all that excitement a certain plush toy among the ones thrown on the ice after their performance caught Berwald’s eye. The fact it was a plush _mermaid_ might have helped. A mermaid with a card attached to it’s tail with a safety pin, even.

“What’s that?” Tino asked curiously.

Berwald turned the card towards him. On it, in a messy handwriting, was the text:

_Don’t worry, you can’t lose with such great music. And the ~~ice ballet~~ skating wasn’t too bad either.  
PS. Flew over here to cheer on you guys, see you at the hotel bar at ten._

There was no name on it.

“Hmph, Danes...” Berwald mumbled, shaking his head, but not unfondly.

Tino snickered, and thumped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t be such a grump. We’d better go see them, they did mix the music especially for us...well, Ice did, but same difference.”

“Fin’...b’t just one drink.”

“Aww, Berwald...at least three? That’s not even...”

“Two.”

“Oh, _fine,_ you spoilsport.”

Berwald gave his partner a sly look. Or, at least, what passed for sly on his face.

“Ya’ll want t’ be awake t’night,” he said offhandedly.

“Huh, what does that...oh. And we were playing for Sweden so I call the shots...heh, I have just the idea. You’ll love it, trust me.”

“Sure I will.”

*

_The End~_

[](http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r148/stalkerbunny/tablet%20arrrt/?action=view&current=skateillcopy-1.jpg)   


  
Source:  
“Similar pair”: Made up of two men or two women.  
“Side by side triple cross foot spin”: That’s...pretty much put together fancy sounding stuff. Side by side is basically the skaters doing the same things simultaneously, spins or jumps or steps.  
“A triple axel throw”: A throw jump is a when a skater throws their pair into the air and s/he lands on their own. According to wiki this is supposed to be one of the more difficult ones performed in a competition.  
[Death Spiral](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_spiral_\(figure_skating\)): Pretty much just sounded cool there. :P  
“[Hólmganga ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmgang)”: Old Norse for "to go to (or walk on) a small island" = basically a type of duel. Very macho.  
Thor and the World Serpent: Thor is a Norse god of thunder, The World Serpent is a humongous sea serpent. Supposed to battle at the end of the world (Ragnarök). Thor eventually kills the serpent, but only walks nine steps before dropping dead from it’s poison. ‘s very sad.


End file.
